Nobody gets into the good rooms by knocking on the door
The networking industry is worth $15 billion. Most of it is completely useless.
I joined Brand Built because Nat Berman agreed to come on my podcast.
That was the whole deal. He’d show up as a guest, I’d check out his community. A straight swap between two people who both needed something.
What I didn’t expect was to walk in and immediately see what nobody else could see.
The networking industry has a dirty little secret
Americans spend somewhere around $15 billion a year on networking. Conferences. Memberships. Masterminds. LinkedIn Premium. Business cards nobody keeps.
And the return on most of it? Approximately nothing.
Not because networking doesn’t work. Because almost everyone is doing it wrong.
The standard playbook goes like this: show up, introduce yourself, exchange cards, follow up, add value, build relationships, eventually ask for something.
It sounds logical. It’s also how you spend three years “building relationships” with people who don’t remember your name.
What actually happens in the good rooms
Here’s what nobody tells you about how real business relationships form.
The people worth knowing aren’t sitting around waiting to be networked at. They’re busy. They’re building things. They’re drowning in coffee chat requests from people who want to “pick their brain.”
You’re not getting in by knocking.
You get in by finding the conversation that’s already happening and giving yourself a legitimate reason to be in it. A podcast. A community. A mastermind. An event where the person you want to know actually shows up and actually talks.
Not their content feed. Not their comment section. The room where they’re actually thinking out loud.
